Keith Puckett says he was heading to the gym to help prepare for a basketball tryout at El Segundo High School when a police officer passing in the opposite direction flipped a U-turn and stopped him.
Puckett, 47, senior security program manager at Microsoft, was driving a weathered pickup truck he borrowed from a friend, according to a civil rights complaint filed last August in LA County Superior Court, which described the March 2021 encounter.
Officers alleged that the lights on the truck’s rear license plate were on the complaint. Puckett claims he insisted on checking that all the lights work before hitting the road. Photos included in the court filing, which he said was taken on the day he stopped, show clearly illuminated the license plate and a frame saying he “want to fish” at the rear of the vehicle.
The real reason he was stopped is that his complaint is that the officer “sees someone of color in the car.”
It was not the first time that Paakt, who is black, claimed to have been racially introduced in El Segundo.
In a court application, Packett said he would contact police department and local officials to “see whether agreement can be reached on policy changes to improve the treatment of black people in El Segundo,” but the disagreement led to an ongoing lawsuit.
The city denied fraudulent conduct in the court’s application and challenged Puckett’s claim.
“The city of El Segundo is committed to treating everyone fairly, regardless of race, national origin, sexual orientation, sexual identity or any alleged involvement in criminal activity,” the statement issued last August said. “Our police chiefs are committed to supporting our high standards and do not tolerate any kind of bias or discrimination.”
However, in April, the judge refused a request to break the complaint and allowed the case to move forward.
“It’s clear that without this court case, there’s no change.” Maurice Suh, a lawyer for Puckett, told The Times.
Lawyers say the reworking of the federal Justice Department under President Trump has left a case like Puckett as one of the final lines of defense against alleged civil rights violations.
Under the new leadership of Trump and assistant Atty. General Hermet Dillon has dissolved after about 70% of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division was dissolved. The rest have been issued with a new set of priorities.
Instead of the traditional function of protecting the constitutional rights of minority communities and marginalized people, the administration plans to use the department as an enforcement unit for state and local officials, university administrators and student protesters. Dillon says her office is spreading “awakened ideology.”
The department plans to refocus voter fraud efforts and limit the rights of trans people. This week, DOJ announced it would not enforce agreements with police departments in Minneapolis, Kentucky, to end federal oversight that stemmed from the 2020 murders of George Floyd and Breana Taylor.
DOJs usually enforce laws that prohibit discrimination, prosecute police misconduct, and conduct investigations into unconstitutional violations that have been established in several agencies.
But even with federal enforcement, police departments can be slow to embrace change. State data shows that racial profiling remains widespread, with black and Latino individuals halting by police at a rate that is disproportionately associated with the proportion of California’s population.
“The Department of Justice will only be involved in the worst and worst cases, and without that oversight, systemic abuse is likely to ramp out in law enforcement in our country,” said James Desimone, a lawyer specializing in civil rights law.
Packet’s claims against El Segundo have been one of several that have been filed in recent years against local governments in LA County.
The Beverly Hills Police Department has been repeatedly sued by several Black LAPD officers who claim they were pulled without justification.
Officials claim that it is included in a $500 million class action lawsuit against Beverly Hills, which claims that more than 1,000 black people have been unfairly targeted, handcuffed and arrested. Attorneys Brad Gage and Ben Crump filed a lawsuit in 2021, following up on another lawsuit last year.
“The city of Beverly Hills continues to defend this case vigorously. The role of the Beverly Hills Police Department is to enforce the law regardless of race,” Deputy Mayor Keith Sterling wrote in a statement.
Gage said in his 40 years of practice that this era was “the worst.” [he’s] Regarding discrimination lawsuits.”
Gage has not foreseen his case, which is being affected by federal civil rights changes, but he is worried about what will happen to the accountability of “recurring criminals” like Beverly Hills under this modified DOJ Civil Rights Division.
“We definitely want to see them have an agreement order. We don’t know if that’s possible,” Gage said. “It’s going to come more for lawyers to try and do things through the courts.”
The cuts under the Trump administration are expected to delay cases that involve Equal Employment Opportunity Commission relationships due to staffing that “there are not enough people to process the files,” Gage said.
Another Los Angeles lawyer, Will Reid, deals with employment law and workplace discrimination, and said that an executive order from Trump “eliminating the use of liability for different effects” could have significant consequences.
Different impact methods may have subtle bias and may not be intended. The purpose is to hold employers, housing providers and others responsible for practices that disproportionately harm vulnerable groups.
“If we lose the ability to use different influences, it will take away the tools we use to try to make society a more equitable place,” Reed said.
At the state level, a spokesman for California’s Civil Rights Office said that agencies are monitoring federal government actions, but the focus is “still the same to protect the civil rights of all Californians.”
Atty. General Rob Bonta said he will continue to investigate law enforcement agencies to comply with civil rights laws and will continue to support the Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Committee. The board, created in 2015, requires law enforcement agencies to collect and report demographic data to eliminate discrimination.
“California is not retreating. My office will continue to investigate and enforce state and federal civil rights laws vigorously,” Bonta said in a statement in the Times. “California has always prioritized this work, and we’ll continue to do that.”
But there’s not much that the state can do without additional surveillance from federal authorities.
Jin Healy, the Strategic Initiative Director of Legal Defense Fund, is concerned not only about the surges faced by private law firms and nonprofits like her, but also about the budget cuts that are lacking to fight the long-term court battle.
Despite the Civil Rights Division’s shrinking, she has not yet lost her faith in local government.
“People shouldn’t feel helpless,” Lee said. “They still have the ability to pressure local elected officials and make sure that the kind of public safety they receive is what they want.”
El Segundo officials said in a statement issued last August in response to Packet’s lawsuit that they treated his claims seriously and hired an outside company to carry out an independent investigation. The Puckett had proposed dozens of policy changes, but the city said it was “already adhered to everything except one of his requests.”
“The only issue that Mr. Puckett and the city actually disagreeed was his request that certain vehicle code violations be stripped for suspension,” El Segundo’s statement said.
In his lawsuit, Puckett said he “plans to live in El Segundo, a city he has long referred to as his hometown.” However, despite efforts to bring about change, he argued that police officers were following him and remained alive in fear of future encounters.
Puckett called the case “his ultimate effort to establish his constitutional rights, take the city liability for its misconduct and force it to halt the profiling of racially black people.”
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